Gerald Horne is a right-revisionist anti-marxist who cherry picks and selectively quotes his sources to present his case for historical revisionism. That is to say he does not look at sources and writes his historical thesis to fit the sources, he writes his historical thesis and then makes the sources fit it.
People seem to really like the "it was just to/even significantly about" stopping the abolition of slavery narrative. Like even if you wanna make that case, the audacity of saying it was the "principle motivation" is just a fabrication. I think it was the director of the Freestate of Jones who, when 1619 pulled this bullshit, said very simply that if colonies like the Carolinas wanted independence for that reason the evidence would be in the historical record. They wouldn't hide it.
Beyond that, the record and iirc the very declaration outright states that the tyranny of the British had in part to do with dictating terms on their behalf with natives, ie the British crown didn't want to keep paying for expansion at a haphazard rate, so they made pacts which settlers hated.
I don't dislike Horne at all, but I swear he better not become the next Furr
I think Horne's heart is genuinely in the right place, and enjoy his writing. Outside of the glaring issues he has, the history he writes about is outstandingly educational and touches on aspects of history commonly left out, namely his application of historical materialism through ensuring the reader has context of global powers in that moment of history in order to understand the decisions regional groups would make.
I really wanna read his work on sailors. Been on my list for a while. 'Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica'
It just sucks that people eat up essentialist takes wholesale
Gerald Horne is a right-revisionist anti-marxist who cherry picks and selectively quotes his sources to present his case for historical revisionism. That is to say he does not look at sources and writes his historical thesis to fit the sources, he writes his historical thesis and then makes the sources fit it.
I know it because I own the book and read it and looked at the sources he drew from. To save us both time, I'll recommend this article from some silly Trot that did came to the same conclusion
People seem to really like the "it was just to/even significantly about" stopping the abolition of slavery narrative. Like even if you wanna make that case, the audacity of saying it was the "principle motivation" is just a fabrication. I think it was the director of the Freestate of Jones who, when 1619 pulled this bullshit, said very simply that if colonies like the Carolinas wanted independence for that reason the evidence would be in the historical record. They wouldn't hide it.
Beyond that, the record and iirc the very declaration outright states that the tyranny of the British had in part to do with dictating terms on their behalf with natives, ie the British crown didn't want to keep paying for expansion at a haphazard rate, so they made pacts which settlers hated.
I don't dislike Horne at all, but I swear he better not become the next Furr
I think Horne's heart is genuinely in the right place, and enjoy his writing. Outside of the glaring issues he has, the history he writes about is outstandingly educational and touches on aspects of history commonly left out, namely his application of historical materialism through ensuring the reader has context of global powers in that moment of history in order to understand the decisions regional groups would make.
I really wanna read his work on sailors. Been on my list for a while. 'Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica'
It just sucks that people eat up essentialist takes wholesale